But affordable housing is pushed to the periphery of Pune

PUNE: Satish Rajopadhye has been on the look out for a two-bed room house and has a budget of Rs 35 lakh for it. His search for the right place however seems endless as there are simply no homes available within his budget in the city’s well-known pockets. The situation has forced him to consider a site 30 km north of the city and even there his budget is barely meeting the asking price.

Shrinking availability of space within city, leading to high land prices, has pushed development of affordable housing to the city’s peripheral areas or even to more distant locales, understood to be in Pune district’s rural parts for so long.

Developer Vishal Gokhale recently announced Briz, a project which his firm Gokhale Constructions is developing at Pirangut, 20 km away from the city. He says it is possible to offer affordable housing in the outskirts of Pune as land for budget housing is simply not available in the city. “Many projects of redevelopment are taking place across the city, but the cost of offering free homes to existing residents there pushes up the price for new buyers significantly,” he adds.

Thus, new projects of affordable housing are coming up in distant locations such as Pirangut on the city’s west or Wagholi in the north or Shirwal in the city’s south. Sanjay Bajaj, managing director for Pune at real estate advisory company Jones Lang LaSalle India, says as Pune’s established locations get more and more expensive, developers of mid-income projects are looking at emerging locations where land availability and pricing still support the budget homes rationale.

Sachin Kulkarni, managing director of Vastushodh Projects Private Limited, says many industrial establishments have excess land which can be unbundled for housing purposes. His company recently did one such effort and is in the process of developing nearly 1,000 homes which will accommodate the employees of the industry and people interested in budget homes.

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